The world is upside down
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
The political weather is turning in Washington, D.C. The new seriousness has begun to affect even the left-of-center media. It is a rare thing to have a liberal magazine attack a liberal senator. It is even stranger to have a warhorse columnist of the left praise one of the icons of the right. But that is what exactly what happened in the past week.
You will want to read Michael Crowley's "Personal Time" in the Nov. 19 New Republic and Mary McGrory's "The Advocate Who Won't Quit" in Sunday's Washington Post. Crowley's subject is Vermont Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, an increasingly erratic, out-of-touch member of the Democrats' way-left club. McGrory writes primarily about Texas Congressman Tom DeLay, long an object of hatred by the weird left for the combination of his conservative ideas and his tactical brilliance.
Crowley blisters Leahy. McGrory sings DeLay's praises. The world is upside down.
Seeing a poser like Leahy get blasted by anonymous Democrats – "He's always had a much higher view of himself than anyone else" – is a real joy. Turns out that Leahy lacks the temperament to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The account of Leahy's screaming at, of all people, Dianne Feinstein is not to be missed. What a surprise: Leahy's a bully, and a sputtering one at that.
Senior Democrats with an eye on the 2002 Senate races have watched with unease as Leahy imposed a near-total boycott on the Bush nominees for federal judgeships. Starving the courts during a national emergency is not playing well with those who learn of it, and more are learning of it.
And now, Leahy has bitterly attacked Attorney General John Ashcroft for moving to monitor the conversations between lawyers and suspected terrorists. The new rule applies to 13 out of 158,000 federal prisoners, but Leahy tore off a letter to Ashcroft that warned, "I am deeply troubled at what appears to be an executive effort to exercise new powers without judicial scrutiny or statutory authorization." As Crowley's piece reported, Tom Daschle is already concerned that Leahy is making Democrats look "weak on terrorism." Now there is proof – Democrats are weak on terrorism.
The New Republic also notes the bitterness of Republicans toward Leahy on the matter of judges. Though Clinton did get 373 of his nominees confirmed, a handful of his nominees were blockaded, primarily as payback for nomination games played during the last year of the first Bush presidency. The Senate expected some payback, and some was quick to come – Congressman Chris Cox, for example, was blackballed by California's Barbara Boxer.
But few expected Leahy to become the disfigurement of a chairman – but he has. The good news is that Leahy's extremism is discrediting Democratic arguments against Bush nominees even as it fills Republican coffers. (You can help the National Republican Senatorial Committee by contributing online at Regain The Majority.) That good news is compounded by the outbreak of objectivity among the center-left press. Leahy's bizarre mood swings and his domineering conduct have caught the attention of The New Republic. And the New Republic is widely read among the editorialists of the comfortable left.
Mary McGrory is read by the wacko left, and not merely read, but deeply loved. So imagine the choking among her set when her paean to DeLay reached their ears. DeLay it turns out is a genuine champion of abused kids, and he has battled bureaucrats and Senate Democrats to force reform upon the failed District of Columbia juvenile-justice system. McGrory could not bring herself to mention the Christian roots of DeLay's convictions, but for the columnist to summon the will to write honestly about a conservative is breakthrough enough for one day.
So why would these two unexpected bursts of candor about left and right show up now? Partisans disguised as journalists have long understood that their words matter. They have worked their views into their reporting, and they have tried to help their friends and hurt their enemies. Some are honest about this – I root for the GOP to get the Senate back. Others are not, and pretend, not very successfully, to be "independent."
In the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, the tone on the left side of the political writers guild has been evolving quickly. Orwell fought with the Republicans in Spain, and it changed him – gave him an incredible moral clarity. Other writers of the left had to travel long roads after coming face to face with the realities of Stalin's world or the killing fields of Cambodia. The still burning wreckage of the World Trade Centers and the charred walls of the Pentagon shocked thousands of scribblers. Some have not been moved. Their wretched world views remain intact, and they remain isolated from the great causes.
But some have absorbed the enormity of the threat, and have moved quickly to throw off a great deal of baggage revealed suddenly to have been nonsense. It is not a terrible thing to have been wrong. It is a terrible thing to have been so, and remain so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
The Leahys of Washington have been very wrong about many things for a very long time. The DeLays have been very right about many things for a very long time. Neither Leahy or DeLay has changed at all in the past two months. But suddenly the professionals in the audience are waking up to those who play the fool and those who fight the good fight. Expect more surprises in the months ahead. "Depend upon it sir," wrote Samuel Johnson, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." The same can be said of those, especially journalists, who realize that they might have been targets themselves two months ago. Such an awakening is very good for the country. But it is very bad for folks like Patrick Leahy.
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